Successful training for engineers, architects, planners and other building professionals happening in Bangladesh

Bangladesh, a densely populated country in South Asia, is the eighth-most populous country in the world with more than 161 million people. Following a string of natural disasters and rapid urbanization, the country dedicated itself to improving emergency response and preparedness, developing a strong capacity to manage risks, and building the country’s resilience to natural disasters. To further these aims, last year, the Bangladesh National Building Code 2020 (BNBC 2020) was gazetted (published in an official government journal) as a mandatory law for building design and construction.

A $173 million World Bank funded Urban Resilience Project (URP) was initiated in 2015 to strengthen the capacity of the Government of Bangladesh agencies to respond to emergency events and to strengthen systems to reduce the vulnerability of future building construction to disasters in Dhaka and Sylhet. Part of the project was awarded to Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) or the Capital Development Authority of Dhaka. In October 2018, the Code Council was awarded a contract for one of the components (Component S-9 — Building Code Enforcement) of URP: RAJUK Part. As part of the training and capacity building effort under Component S-9, an extensive training program was carried out on the new BNBC 2020 and its background, to educate engineers, architects, planners and other building industry professionals.

The training program lasted almost four months, starting on March 23, 2021, and ending on July 15, 2021. The program included 43 webinars that were free for attendees — 27 presented live and 16 pre-recorded — with 1,374 individuals attending one or more of the webinars; the highest attendance at an individual webinar was 634. Delivered online using the Webex platform, most webinars were two- to two-and-a-half hours long and the live webinars included a question-and-answer session at the end. Webinar attendance and successful completion of an online quiz were required for receiving a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) certificate.

Dr. S.K. Ghosh, president of S. K. Ghosh Associates LLC, part of the International Code Council’s family of solutions, served as an expert instructor from the U.S. alongside other professional instructors from the U.S. and Bangladesh. S. K. Ghosh is the team leader for Component S-9.

All webinars in the training program were recorded — with presentation materials in PDF format for downloading — and can be accessed at the two web pages below.

BNBC Training Outline (General and Structural Instruction)

BNBC Training Outline (Building and Fire and Life Safety & Building Services)

These successful training offerings would not have been possible without the support of Project Director Abdul Latif Helaly. Recipient of this years’ International Code Council Global Award, which recognizes the contributions of the Code Council’s members and associates to international building safety, Helaly has long promoted building safety globally, especially through his leadership of the Urban Resilience Project: RAJUK Part. While work on the project has been particularly difficult during the ongoing pandemic, his perseverance and ability to skillfully manage and balance the needs of a wide group of stakeholders has benefited the citizens of Bangladesh.